Before Robert got so he could take care of himself, Angie and I alternated helping. We later admitted having especially enjoyed the sponge-bath part. His shower was busted. “Strip,” she told him, knuckles on hips. “No, on second thought, let me. Go limp like Herbert Marshall being the noble weakling in The Little Foxes. Here, allow strict Momma to. She’ll wash up as far as possible and down as far as possible. You wash Possible. Then she’ll take some good nappy terrycloth hand towel, Lad, and she’ll dry and dry and buff your big ole possum Possible.”

There was scarring. To the credit of St. Vincent’s, the ER doctor, an East Indian who wrote short stories and had read my one, registered the beauty of Robert’s face and phoned a buddy plastic surgeon, who—for nothing, for the right to photograph this particular face and his work on it—did everything science could. Robert’s face drew art to its salvation. Even so, he was left damaged.

The marks remaining above our Robert Christian’s right eye grew reasonably faint in the eighteen months left. Their deepest reddest V was shaped oddly, like a bow with two streaming ends. Scar tissue bit a line into the silver-blond eyebrow of the eye hurt worst. Though the gash became less angry—a mild half-pink, visible especially when he tanned—it never quite faded.

Forever after, every time I looked into Robert’s deep-end eyes, I fought my urge to see scars first.

Those Left Back Home

e still heard from the hometown. Odd, it, and not New York, now seemed increasingly exotic.

High school chums said they lost sleep over our safety—us sticking it out in The Sewer—but they still felt somewhat hopeful for us. Of course, I wouldn’t tell any of them about the mugging (lest it reach my parents). “Never better” remained my answer.

“So, famous yet?” they asked. “If not now, when?”—Met Yoko? No? Know Carol Channing? Saw her once on the street? Spoke? That’s a start. Why not just invite her over?”

My parents had sold the neo-Colonial Big House. They relocated to a glass box overlooking a Florida golf course and the lake that made that course both gorgeous and difficult. When would I come down for a visit and a rest?

Most of my childhood friends still lived two blocks from their own folks’ landscaped houses. They did weekly laundry in familiar utility rooms. From these pals, I got mail. Here came the synthetic Hickory Farm Food packets we could all live on for days. Cheeze Logs rolled in pecan crumbs became your morning omelettes then afternoon appetizers, midnight entrees, till lucky airshaft pigeons were thrown the final nuts.